Quick Fit with Cassy

- Our hands do so much for us.

Today, we'll take care of them.

Hello, I'm Cassy, and this is Quick Fit , your daily workout so you can live better, longer.

Most fitness programs ignore the muscles and joints of the hands.

Not here, so let's get moving.

[gentle music] So for today's class, you can perform the entire class seated.

Make sure you go in a nice, relaxed way, especially if you're dealing with any preexisting conditions or painful spots.

Let's just press these hands forward.

[inhales] A few circles with the wrist.

Feels good already, doesn't it?

[exhales] Down and then pressing forward, making sure you're completely opening through the elbows.

Bending at the wrist, stretching your fingers as wide as you can.

[inhales] Rotate, press forward again.

[exhales] Don't forget to breathe, okay?

It really helps to facilitate the muscles loosening.

[exhales] All right, make a few fists and open.

Fists and open, working through that wrist.

[inhales and exhales] As we're warming up, making bigger and bigger circles with the wrists, and good.

Making sure you're also opening your fingers as wide as you can, you know, apart from one another.

Okay, close and open, close and open.

All right, press it forward one more time.

And then use your thumb right under your wrist, and we'll use your fingers to press the back of the hand down.

You can bend through the elbow and extend.

[exhales] Big inhale.

[inhales] Bend to the elbow and extend.

[exhales] Nice.

Let's do that other hand.

So just get your thumb right under your wrist.

Use your fingers against the back of the hand, straightening your elbow.

Let's bend it.

[inhales] Exhale, [exhales] bend and exhale.

You know, the muscles that control your hand are all up through your forearms.

So we need to think about those as well.

Make a fist and do some circles.

And then one more time, stretching it forward.

Using that thumb again, and a gentle press down.

Other side, gentle press down.

All right, circle through the thumbs and continue to open up your fingers.

And stretching them away from the palm as much as you can.

Open that thumb, reach under with your other hand and just do a gentle pull down of the thumb, opening that palm.

You can do it from under, or you can do it from above.

[inhales and exhales] Inhale, exhale.

I always say that 'cause it's so important for helping your body to relax, opening up that thumb.

Now open up your right hand, just mirror me.

Use your thumb to press down at the base of your pinky.

Okay, you can grab the side of your palm using the leverage of the back of your hand to open up the palm from this side.

Let's do the other side.

So I'll be getting my thumb at the base of my pinky, grabbing the palm, opening it up.

Good, and continue to try to stretch open with the thumb.

Good.

So now let's just close the fingertips to the insides of your knuckles.

We're not making a complete fist.

We're only working on the finger joints now.

I really, really love this move.

If you have stiffness and a little burning, this will begin to work to move that out, especially if you do this consistently.

If you do this for several minutes each day, you will find that your fingers begin to feel looser and not quite so stiff.

All right, touching and touching.

And if you have to use your other hand to encourage a little fuller movement, by all means, do that.

Now we're bringing the fingertips down.

Keep it going, [inhales and exhales] keep it breathing.

Repeating as many as you like, taking your time.

Don't let me rush you.

This is your workout.

All right, let's hold those fingertips down and rotate through the thumb.

Good, open.

Pulling the fingers down.

All right, now, straight up with the pointer finger and continue to pull down with the other fingers.

It's a big L. Okay, now try to get the next middle finger up.

Keep pulling up with those three fingers, and it's okay if you have to use your other hand to hold the other fingers down.

Okay, do whatever you have to do for you.

Let's try to get another finger up.

See, I can't quite do it, so I'm gonna hold my pinky down, get the other ones up.

All right, and then squeeze and lift, squeeze and lift.

We'll do the other hand.

So I'm gonna hold my pinky down and make like claws with my fingers.

Down and up, down and up.

All right.

You know, the first time I started working with my hands, I was very surprised to find that I already had some burning and I felt like that shouldn't be showing up quite yet.

So it shows up sooner than you realize.

And you don't realize it unless you go around trying to do special exercises with your hands.

So let's not forget to work our hands.

All right, down and up, all right.

Let's cross your thumb all the way to the base of your pinky.

And at the same time, keep trying to stretch your fingers open and long.

Now I'm feeling this clear up into my forearms.

[inhales and exhales] Now wiggle them.

Whew, that burns.

[laughing] But it's just because they're weaker.

It's not a bad pain for me, so I'm going to continue.

All right, and open, good.

All right, press again.

More fists, wrists circles, fist wrist circles.

All right, now press 'em down.

Bring those elbows together.

Very good.

All right, couple praying hands, elbows up.

Heels of the hands down.

Good, lift [inhales] and exhale.

[exhales] All right, from here, let's begin to open the chest.

Nice big arms.

Let's have your feet slightly in front of you.

Think about your thumbs.

They should be pointed up to the ceiling and then rotate them back a little further.

[inhales and exhales] Very good, a couple more.

Big circles, big arms rotating towards the back of you.

All right, let's just use your left arm, if you're mirroring me, and make a 90 degree with your elbow.

Of course, if you have any sort of bad pain at this height, go right ahead and modify and find a different height for you.

Now, I'd like you to bend at the wrist if you can.

[inhales and exhales] Now see if you can maybe pull that elbow back a little further and press to the ceiling as if you're a waitress with a tray on your hand, press, down and press.

All right, relax the wrist.

A little circle and a pull back.

Lengthening these very tight muscles on the front of your chest.

[exhales] Bend that wrist and relax it down.

Let's do the other side.

So it's a nice 90 degree.

[inhales and exhales] Bend through that wrist if you can.

And then if you're able to move the wrist a little back further than your elbow, do that.

[inhales and exhales] Now let's pull back a little more if you've got room.

Stretching through here, stomach in so you don't overarch your back.

Head up over your shoulders, press, press, press.

Real good, and now we'll gently bring that down.

All right, let's just do a few shoulder halos.

Real loose, circles are very good for healing your joints, especially if you do them very loosely without force.

I like to explain the difference between moving your muscles in a loose manner and using force as if you were closing your hand to hold a butterfly, as opposed to closing your hand to crush a peanut.

So loose would be holding a butterfly.

All right, so let's do another halo.

Pull that elbow back.

Brushing the back of your hair, [exhales] elbow towards your back pocket.

Again, one more and down.

Let's do the other side.

Around and down.

You can add a little turn of the neck.

[inhales and exhales] One more.

Two arms hanging down, a few very relaxed shoulder circles.

Good.

Don't forget to breathe, don't hold your breath.

It's very common, so try to be more aware of that.

Two arm reaches up nice and high into some big Ws, thinking about moving those elbows into your back pockets.

A couple more, up.

[inhales] Pull it down, [exhales] stomach in, down and up and down.

[exhales] All right, pressing to the ceiling, pressing to the ceiling, stretching through your ribs, press and hold.

Now think about lifting that shoulder up by your ear.

Let's do a little circle from your shoulder joint, not the elbow, the shoulder, opening it up to the back.

Think about opening up that armpit, [exhales and inhales] lengthen.

Is your elbow straight?

Maybe you need to go about to here to straighten that elbow and then do your shoulder circle.

[exhales] Making them bigger.

Loose of course, if anything doesn't feel really good.

All right, other side.

Lifting through that shoulder, pulling in the stomach, circling right from the shoulder.

Lots of body parts involved.

And the more you practice thinking of all of them, the better at body awareness you'll be.

More aware during the day at how you're carrying yourself.

All right, let's do a couple apple pickers.

So we'll start with this right arm.

You're mirroring me, and imagine you wanna push a wall away, but you're locked in.

You can't move your body.

So you're extending through the shoulder.

I'll show you from the side, pull the shoulder back, elbow straight.

There's a lot to think of.

Push, as if somebody's pulling on your arm.

[exhales] Resist.

Imagine you're pinching a pencil between your shoulder blades.

Again, extend and pull.

You'll get that one after a few, if you're new and that one's kind of awkward.

Let's do the other arm.

So hand's about, hand is about forehead height and you're pressing through the shoulder, pulling it back.

Push and pull, push and pull.

Let's do two arms now.

So they're both about forehead height.

Push, as if you're being pulled out of the water, water skiing, and now pinch that pencil.

Very good, extend.

And turning sideways, just so you can see how I'm moving through the shoulders, elbows are straight, [inhales and exhales] and back, extend and back.

Now hold those here a minute, keep pinching that pencil.

Shoulders are down, shoulders are back, [inhales] stomach's in, [exhales] pinching the pencil.

Let's wash a window.

[inhales and exhales] There's a lot to think about and every time you do this one, it'll get a little easier and it'll feel very, very good, especially for those overstretched muscles in the top of your back, that are always under so much tension from being way too elongated for way too many hours.

[exhales] They'll get a sigh of relief.

All right, I'd like you to lift your arm up over your head and press.

[inhales] Inhale, exhale, extend.

[exhales] Reach up, grab that wrist.

[exhales] Open up that joint, body resists.

[exhales] All right, that felt really good.

Let's do the other side.

Start with a couple small presses, [exhales] inhale, [inhales] exhale.

Getting a little bigger, [exhales] and reach.

Grab that wrist and pull.

Big inhale, [inhales] and then the body resists.

[exhales] Isn't that nice?

All right, and let's just bring it down and do a couple easy circles, right at the side.

Couple of bigger ones.

[exhales] A little bigger.

Let it fall, bigger.

Let it fall.

[exhales] Other side.

A couple circles right at the side.

[inhales and exhales] Sitting up tall, don't forget.

At least for a few minutes during the class, we are not reclining against that chair back.

A little bigger, [exhales] a little bigger.

Forward and down, and let it fall.

[inhales and exhales] Very great, very great.

And in the front, just a couple easy, loose circles to the front.

Other side.

And then a wiping out of the inside of a big cauldron or a big pot, other side.

Big, big, big.

And that is it.

Remember, with all the muscles and joints in our hands, we cannot ignore them.

A little daily care goes a long way.

So come back often to pbswisconsin.org/quickfit to get the broadest range of classes so you can keep doing all the things you love.

See you next time.